Organizational And Development Program For King's County

The Purpose of conducting a community health assessment and health improvement planning process on Kings County in New York State at this time for the following reasons: first, it is a mandatory requirement for students in Master of Public Health Program at Benedictine University to be eligible to graduate. Second, it is a requirement to any local public health department to conduct an assessment of community needs and develop a plan to deal with these needs every three years to fulfill New York State certification requirements.

            The benefits and the expected results from this need assessment plan are the following: identifying  and prioritizing health problems, strengthening community involvement, maximizing the use of limited community resources, improving the access to health care, improve the quality of life of Kings County's residents and finally, remaining current regarding the Kings County community needs, concerns and health problems.

Kings County Community Participation in the MAPP Process

            Organizing the planning process and forming the planning partnership is the first step in MAPP to make the community participants and the key people are involved. In order to form a community health committee, invitations were sent to the organizations that serving Kings County. The community health committee is composed of  board members who are representatives of numerous organizations throughout Kings County. The purpose of the committee is to steer the process, provide resources, and give recommendations. There are five steering committee members and twenty stakeholders representatives. The members of the committee include representatives of the following: hospitals, medical centers, police department, fire department, education department, community centers, public health department, and others.

The planning process description

            Regarding the planning process, it is a process that will take eighteen months to complete beginning with July 01, 2013. It will detail the six MAPP steps that start with organizing step and end with the action cycle. During the first four months, the organize for success and partnership development step will be completed by defining the purpose of the plan, identifying the key participants, forming the steering committee, designing the planning process and developing a timeline framework. In the next two months, the visioning step will be established by forming vision and value statements after steering committee meetings. By the beginning of year 2014, the four MAPP assessments will begin and will last for approximately six months. It will include: the Community Themes  and Strengths assessment, the Local Public Health System assessment, the Community Health assessment and the Forces of Change assessment. In the last six months, the last three steps will be done which include: identify strategic issues, formulate goals and strategies, and the action cycle. Each of the last three steps will take approximately two months to complete.